


The View From Up Here

by Archer_Willows



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23690239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archer_Willows/pseuds/Archer_Willows
Summary: Five years after Zhan Tiri is defeated, a strange group of hunters attack Cassandra. She is rescued by an old friend, but they are later transported to the world of How To Train Your Dragon, where they embark on a journey to save Berk, and return to their time.
Relationships: Cassandra/Varian (Disney: Tangled), Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	1. Prologue

**The View From Up Here**

**Prologue**

**5 YEARS** after Cassandra left Corona to find her own destiny, she found herself sending out a secret distress signal she had set up just before she left. She reached in the satchel attached to Fidella and pulled out the cassandrium necklace Varian had given her after she had saved his life when one of his inventions went haywire. In fact, the very same invention had created the element itself, and Varian had surprised Cass when he proclaimed the element to be named, “cassandrium,” which was the first time anyone had ever named an element after her. She didn’t have time to write a letter. That’s why she had the cassandrium ready. 

She threw the necklace to her owl, Owl, who flew off due northeast, tight towards Corona. Mounting Fidella, Cass ran in the same direction to both lessen the time it would take for them to find her and also to keep herself alive while she waited. She didn’t know how far she was away from Corona, but it would take several days at least to get there. She didn’t know how they could make it. They were travelling at a similar speed as the pursuers, and Fidella would  _ have _ to stop to rest a lot, and Cass doubted that whoever was following them would let them sleep nice and easily instead of putting a bag over their heads and tying them up. But Cass couldn’t just give up. She owed it to Raps, who would go crazy if anything happened to her, and to Fidella, who had always been there for her. She couldn’t give up on them. No, she  _ had _ to survive. Cass needed to warn Corona. As they ran, she patted Fidella’s neck lovingly. In turn, Fidella whinnied sadly and charged harder. They left their adversaries behind, but Fidella would lose her energy quickly. 

After about an hour of running, Fidella started to slow down. Cass felt horrible about how she was pushing her, but it wouldn’t do her any good to get caught. They might tie up Fidella or worse. They just couldn’t fail. They kept running.

Suddenly, Cass heard something fly behind her, and Fidella suddenly whinnied. She stopped in her tracks and grunted in pain. Cass flew off the saddle and landed hard in the gravel. Slowly, Cass saw Fidella, and what she saw almost made her cry out. Her legs had been bound together by a flying projectile net attached to rocks, and the rocks had scraped and blooded up her hindquarters and legs. Cass somehow got up despite her cuts and scrapes and possibly a mild concussion. She spit some blood out of her mouth and shakily got to her feet. 

“Stop,” she managed to say.

The group had been studying the horse and hadn’t noticed she had gotten up. “Ah, you’re alive,” the one in the front said. 

He drew his sword from its scabbard, and his men followed suit. “We can fix that,” he said.

Cass drew her blade as well, but there was only one of her, and a dozen of them, and she was injured. There was no chance she’d win this fight.

Something whizzed past her ear, and she thought that one of the men had thrown a rock at her, but this theory was proven wrong when 5 men were blasted backwards into the ground by the sheer force of a small explosion that had resulted when the projectile she’d taken for a rock had landed straight in the middle of their ranks. Incredulously, she looked back and had to blink hard to make sure what she saw was real. Somehow, over less than an hour, the troops from over a thousand miles away had arrived, but it wasn’t  _ troops _ . All that had come was one, significantly older but still definitely young Varian riding in a giant wicker basket on wheels pulled by horses. As they got closer, Cass realized that these horses weren’t horses, they were made entirely out of metal, and they travelled a lot faster than horses. Varian pulled out another vial filled with a glowing green liquid, although it was barely full, and Varian handled it gingerly as if it could kill him if dropped. He threw it at the crowd, and it did not explode on impact, but spluttered with flames and smoked. Cass was beginning to expect it to fizzle out until the green flames exploded outward and created a huge explosion that sucked the air out of Cassandra’s lungs.

“Varian?” Cass managed to say, gasping.

He smiled. “Always the tone of surprise,” he said. “You can’t escape me forever. I’m like a parasite, only more handsome,” he added.

Even though only a few years had passed, Cass couldn’t get over how different he looked. He was a whole lot taller, and he had more defined features. But the thing that most had changed was the way he carried himself. He seemed more grounded, more confident, more mature, and he didn’t have the same childish energy that had both annoyed Cass and cheered her up. He also seemed a lot more focused and determined, and it seemed that he’d learned where to put his nervous energy and how to use it to his advantage. Seeing him so different had distracted Cass from the men who followed her, so she was shocked out of her distraction by the groaning of a man behind her. She barely had time to look behind her before the lead man had charged at her, his sword pointed directly at Cassandra’s chest. She had no time to react, and the man was right in front of her, milliseconds away from burying his sword in her chest.  _ Raps,  _ she thought.  _ I’m sorry _ . She closed her eyes, waiting for her body to explode in pain. But it didn’t come. Instead, the man let out a throaty gasp. A sword clattered to the ground. Cass opened her eyes, and she just had time to register the disarmed man with a pained expression on his face as he fell to the ground with a small knife embedded in his gut. 

Cass turned around and saw Varian standing behind her, his arm outstretched and an expression of pure rage. She immediately realized what happened. Varian had thrown the knife into her adversary's chest. On one hand, Varian had just saved her life. On the other, Varian, the sweet, kind, hilariously awkward kid she’d known five years ago had just straight up  _ murdered _ someone without any hesitation. And yes, Varian  _ had _ tried to kill her and Raps once, but he wasn’t in his right mind, and even then he hesitated. One other thing that surprised her was the throw. He had thrown the blade at the exact right time and with pinpoint accuracy. No one, not a single person Cass knew could throw that well. So, how had Varian done it?

A voice in her head stopped her train of thought in its tracks. 

She looked back at the man’s body, and a bright white object, a cylindrical ring had fallen out of the man’s bag. It was glowing white, and Cass inched over to it. 

“Um, Cassie, I don’t think you should-” 

Cass picked it up. The whispering stopped.

_ Well, that was anticlimactic,  _ she thought.  _ I thought something big and important would happen.  _

Naturally, that’s when everything went to hell. 

A burst of blinding white light, and a strong wind picked up. Cass tried to drop the object but it was stuck in her grip. The inner hole of the ring filled itself with swirling white energy. Cass felt herself being forced in. ‘

“Cass!” Varian shouted and ran over to her. He grabbed her arm to stop her from being sucked in, but his arm got stuck too, and the next thing they knew, they were devoured by the light as they were sucked into the swirling vortex. 


	2. Chapter 1: The New World

**Chapter 1: The New World**

**CASSANDRA HAD SEEN** some pretty weird stuff in her life. Her best friend used to have 70 foot long hair that could heal and destroy. Twice. Unbreakable black rocks led them to a magic stone that could turn her hair blue and give her shiny new armor and control over the rocks. She’d briefly turned into a bird by drinking tea. 

But being eaten by a magical marble donut?

That was new.

The good news? The vortex released them. The bad? It spat them out a hundred feet over the ocean. At that height, the water would be just like rock. Varian desperately ruffled through his backpack, and pulled out a beaker filled with a glowing snow flurry. He shook the bottle, and whispered as they fell, “come on, please work, please work.”

He uncorked the bottle and pointed it straight at the ocean. The flurry inside fell to the ocean and suddenly a giant snowflake made of ice sprouted up like a volcano and caught them before they could die from the fall. After they recovered, Varian laughed happily and exclaimed, “And once again her magic saves me!” he said. “Oh, I owe so many of my own life to that former Queen and her other magic friends.”

Cass wanted to ask about that, but she didn’t get the chance to as she tumbled onto the land. It turned out the ice had quickly taken them to shore and deposited them there.

She admired her surroundings, because they were absolutely beautiful. The sky was bright and clear and the land glistened with colors and the grass was blowing in the wind. The land around was full of beautiful mountains and waters. She breathed in the cool ocean air and sighed in relief.  _ This _ was a place she could live in. 

She didn’t have time to fully take it in, because a gruff voice behind her grunted, “Halt.”

She turned around and faced a large, tall, man with a very long beard. He was pointing a large battle axe at her neck, a real pole with a leather grip and two identical foot-long crescent blades. 

“Berk is closed to visitors at this time,” he said, pushing the axe closer to her chin. “We don’t take kindly to rule breakers.”

Cass was seriously considering drawing her own weapon and fighting, though she suspected the man could decapitate her long before she was in a fighting position. At least she’d be able to buy Varian time to escape. She started to pull her hand towards her sword’s sheath, but then a new man’s voice interrupted, a higher, more friendly voice, “Whoa, whoa, Stickfart, easy there.”

The new man looked only a few years younger than Cassandra herself, but he carried himself just as confident. He had short brown hair and a very nice short beard. He had kind eyes and sun crinkles around his eyes that proved he smiled a lot. 

But wait a minute,  _ Stickfart?  _ What kind of name was that? 

Stickfart reluctantly lowered his weapon. 

“Sorry about that,” the younger man said, and Cass noticed that all the men around him seemed to follow him as if he was their leader. 

“We are a little… defensive about our territories, you see. One of our elders who has predicted many things that in turn came to be true told us of new arrivals that would determine the fate of Berk. We didn’t quite know what to make of that, and I gave the order to close the island.

“But you, you're not what we expected. You’re  _ not  _ vikings. We can tell that. So who  _ are  _ you?”

“I am Cassandra, but you can call me Cass. My friend over there is Varian. And, uh, may I ask who you may be?”

The man nodded. “Glad to meet you, Cassandra and Varian. The Norns decreed we would meet. I am Hiccup, the Chief of Berk. We welcome you to our people’s ancestral land. This,” he said, gesturing to a mountain filled with huts and sculptures and music, “is Berk.”

Cass breathed in at the beauty of the place, but Hiccup continued, “It’s twelve days north of Hopeless and a few degrees south of Freezing to Death. It’s located solidly on the Meridian of Misery. It snows nine months out of the year, and hails the other three. What little food grows here is tough and tasteless. The people that grow here, even more so. My village. In a word? Sturdy. And it’s been here for seven generations, but every single building is fairly new. We have fishing, hunting, and a charming view of the sunsets. We’re Vikings. We have stubbornness issues. My name’s Hiccup. Great name, I know. But, it’s not the worst. Parents believe a hideous name will frighten off gnomes and trolls. Like our charming Viking demeanor wouldn’t do that. 

“Anyway, life in Berk has improved a lot recently, but over the last few months what good things we have went sour. Raiders patrol these areas in the nighttime when we can’t see them. They steal from us, burn down buildings, injure my people. And our built-in defensive system left years ago.” 

He paused, as if that last part hurt him.

“In comeback, we’ve started a group of hunters to patrol the streets. We have the best fighters in the world on duty, and we still can’t keep up with them. We even got two of Berk’s most renowned warriors who hadn’t showed up here forever, Heather and Dagur. They’re siblings, and their reputation is accurate to their skills. But even  _ they  _ have been having trouble with the raiders. It’s like they’re always two steps ahead of us.We-”

He stopped short, and Cass heard why. A horn blew in the distance, loud and giving a clear signal: danger.

“That’s Heather’s horn,” Hiccup said. “She’s in trouble!” 

He looked at Cass and Varian. “Look, I barely know you. And I can’t even pretend to know why you’re here. But I  _ can _ tell from your body language that you’re a fighter, and your friend Varian looks like he can hold his own, too. If you can help me with this, I can help you do whatever  _ you  _ need to do.”

Cass nodded. She knew what it was like when a friend was in danger. Varian walked up to Hiccup and held out his hand. “Then we have an accord,” Varian said.

Hiccup took his hand and shook it. 

They ran, following the sound of the horn. 

Over the nearby hill, the scene shocked Cassandra. In a circle, a bunch of carts stood, filled with goods and treasure. Dozens of armed men surrounded a single woman, but she was holding herself almost flawlessly in battle. She weaved from target to target like a silver and brown flash, wielding a large double battle axe, but it wasn’t a traditional axe. The blades were less uniform and more wild and rocky, though it was still wickedly sharp and the woman clearly knew how to use it. Still, even though she fought like a demon, there were too many men. Cass was about to charge into battle when suddenly her hands were pulled behind her back. When she looked back, some raiders had sneaked up behind her and tied the three of them together. For good measure, they didn’t settle for just hands. They bound them together with many lines of rope before untying their hands. They pushed them over to one of the carts and tied them up there. They were stuck. From there, Cass observed the battle, and got her first close look at the woman. 

She had green eyes and long black hair that framed her face with her bangs parted on the right side and a braid placed over her left shoulder. She wore a long-sleeve light gray shirt with a black, short sleeved hooded shirt over it, and a brown mask to hide her identity. She also wore a brown leather vest, dark gray pants, and brown boots. She had three black belts, as well as one that holds a horn. In terms of armor, she was equipped with metallic-like shoulder guards, bracers, knee pads, and a skirt. She was without a doubt a confident and strong woman, and it would be impossible to describe her without using the word beautiful. 

Despite how strong and skilled she was, the sheer amount of men attacking her would eventually overwhelm her. Cass tried to grab her sword but it was tied up and out of reach. She would have given up hope, except Varian could just barely reach into his satchel, and he rummaged through the contents. 

“Aha!” he exclaimed, as he pulled out not a vial or container for an alchemical solution, but a plastic rectangle. At least, that’s what Cass thought it was until he flicked his wrist and a small knife blade protruded from the rectangle that turned out to be a handle. Cass had never seen such a weapon before, and so she whispered to Varian as he started to saw off the bindings, “what knife is that and where did you get it?”

He chuckled, then whispered back, “you missed a lot in Corona, Cassie. We had a bit of a… technological advancement burst, because of some visitors that showed up about a year ago. They showed us plenty of weird stuff, stuff that shouldn’t be possible by any means.”

Finally, the last of the ropes snapped off. Cass drew her sword and jumped right in front of someone about to strike at the new woman. She blocked his attack and countered, easily disarming him. 

“Hello,” the woman said to Cass. 

Cass deflected another man’s strike and started sparring with him. “Hi,” she responded. She knocked her sword hilt into her adversary’s forehead, knocking him out. “I assume you’re Heather?”

“Yep,” Heather responded, slamming her axe into someone’s chest, killing him instantly. “And you are?”

“Call me Cass,” she responded. Heather smiled at her. 

“How do you guys talk so casually in the middle of battle?” Varian demanded as he dueled with someone sword-on-dagger. 

“Practice,” they responded in unison. Cass tripped someone so they fell on the opposite end of Heather’s axe. 

“There are still too many of them,” Heather worried. “How can we possibly take them all?”

“Well,” Varian reasoned, “there are three things I’ve learned about battle. One:  _ never  _ bet against Cassandra.”

Cass smiled at that. No matter how strong Varian had gotten he still valued her as his role model, and he was always confident about her. He had known what was in her heart more than she did, she found out five years ago. 

Varian continued, “Two: don’t underestimate the power of alchemy,” he pulled a beaker of a yellow chemical that was somewhat familiar to Cass, but she couldn’t remember what it was. “And thirdly,” he said, pulling a strange rock from his bag, “play to your strengths.” 

It wasn’t just a rock, Cass noticed. It was a black rock, one of the Moonstone’s rocks. Cass understood what would happen a moment before it did. She hesitated, and her opponent knocked her in the dirt. At the same moment, Varian threw the rock, then the chemical. Cass wanted to cry out, but she was forced to watch as the chemical met the rock and exploded in a blast of growing amber, encasing three men entirely and trapping five more in it. 

Cass tried not to cry out. Watching Varian kill someone was one thing, but dooming eight men to being forever encased in the same substance that had once almost killed Varian’s father and was Varian’s motivation for revenge, and he did it  _ on purpose,  _ it seemed like Varian wasn’t Varian anymore… Cass didn’t know whether she liked the new Varian better than the old one. Cass wasn’t sure what had happened to him but he’d suddenly gotten a lot tougher and a lot easier with killing. 

“Is that… Deathsong amber?” Heather asked incredulously.

“I have absolutely zero clue what that is but it sounds cool so we’ll have to talk about that later,” Varian replied.

The men around Cass, who was trying to get up were able to push her far away from Heather and to disarm her. Somehow, she managed to keep dodging their attacks. She caught a glimpse of Varian inserting two vials of orange chemicals into a strange contraption that looked like two pipes with a handle. He kept saying, “Come on, come on, please work,” as he cranked a knob on the side all the way back three spaces. He pulled on a trigger and pointed it in Cass’ direction, who was about to be impaled. “Come on, come on!”

There was a hum and a flash of blue light, and lightning blasted over Cass and incinerated the men around her. Varian’s weapon was smoking and a considerable amount of the orange liquid was consumed. 

Varian laughed. “Archer, you genius!” He shouted. He cranked the knob to the middle and started shooting singular blasts of lightning. 

Cass stood up and joined the battle once again at Varian and Heather’s side. “And what is that?” she asked.

“Oh, this?” Varian responded. “This is my Lightning Cannon, powered by the reactions of this chemical mixed with a core of eternal lightning. I got most of this from my magic friend.”

“The magic queen?” She asked, recalling what he had said earlier. 

“No,'' Varian replied, as if that cleared everything up. 

“Guys,” Heather interrupted, “kill bad guys?”

“Right,” Cass replied. “Kill now, talk later.”

Somehow, they got split apart, and they were fighting on their own. Hiccup had joined the battle with a sword made out of pure fire. One man got Heather by surprise and knocked her axe out of her hand, spinning right into Cass’ outstretched hand. She caught it and spiraled around, knocking enemies off their feet, cleaving them and slicing them to shiny little bits. 

“Heads up!” She called to Heather. She flipped the axe in the air and kicked it in midair, flying straight Heather, who’d been wide-eyed at Cass’ performance. For a second, Cass was worried that Heather wouldn’t see it coming until it was too late. Fortunately, she had the reflexes of a warrior angel. She caught the axe as it flew and used it’s momentum to wipe through everyone surrounding her. She switched back to full-on combat beast mode, fighting like a complete demon. Soon, every raider was dead or knocked out. 

“Well,” Heather sheathed her axe. “Nice meeting you, but we don’t have too much time for introductions.”

She shook hands with Varian, then Cass. She smiled at Cass. She had a very warm and gentle smile. 

“Why? Why don’t we have time?” Hiccup questioned.

The earth shook. There was rumbling all around the land, and suddenly, there was a supermassive roar that rolled over the mountains. 

“That’s why,” Heather responded.

They acted like a well-oiled machine. They ran towards the sound of the noise. 


End file.
